Hang Around for a Time
by Kali Cephirot
Summary: There's power in company, in a name, even in these clothes that make Luxord part of a whole all those help his chances to win jackpot, after all. [LuxordxXigbar, FINISHED.]


**Hang Around for a While.**  
_And she says the best thing you can do  
Is hang around for a while  
"Prime Time Deliverance" Matthew Good Band_

His clothes are bloody and thorn, the once white shirt red with blood that is not his – but it had been – long gashes over them where the monsters had attacked him. He didn't pause to wonder this, didn't have time to panic when he was being attacked. Instead he wished he had a bit more of a time to duck and _something_ shifted inside him and then outside of him and he is able to move before the fist of that creature has touched him, it moving slower until he had taken three steps away from it.

Then, something shot it away from him. A man with deep scars over his face and an eyepatch hanging _upside-down_ is shooting to the monsters, grinning like madness as he keep the beasts away.

"Want a ride?" The man asks, and behind him a black hole opens, tall and wide enough for both them. He doesn't hesitate; he knows he doesn't have all the pieces of what's going on, doesn't know why the time feels so very present in the silence of his body and instead just nods, pausing a moment to say thank you before he steps into the darkness.

The feeling of it seems to try to tear him apart from the inside; tendrils of nothing moving inside and around him and wanting to overcome him until its taking all his will not to retreat.

There's a hand on his back then, stopping him before he actually gives his back to this nothingness and runs away.

"Just keep walking," the snipper says. He takes a deep breath and sets his chin. His next step is steady, hands curled by his side and he treats this as another business meeting, something that is not going to defeat him and he walks ahead.

By his side, the other guy exudes amusement.

"So this is the uniform, is it?" It's not a question. He hears Xigbar snort and by the corner of his eye sees him lean against one of the walls that will become his room once – according to what he has been told – his personality takes charge.

It's already starting; chairs formed of the white nothingness in the few minutes since he has been there, dark, sober colors filling the white canvas of the walls. No clocks, despite the fact that he had been told by that scientific that his abilities more likely had to do with time.

Luxord – and besides not having a heart and still being alive, the strangest part is to drop his old name and gather a new one like a coat to him, a name to fit this different no-persona that he has become – does find amusing that his psyche has called forth a copy of Dali's Persistence.

"'fraid so." Luxord turns to look towards Xigbar and for a moment he's not sure what he's talking about before he remembers and then he wonders if time was always this relative. "If you don't like it... well, too bad."

"No, no, it's not that," Luxord assures, an amused tilt to his lips. Clothes make the man, after all, and if he intends to get back what is his, he should act properly.

He knows he's taking this whole turn of events rather calmly; Xigbar had told him as much, how the Nobody they had found before him had gone into hysterics and how the two before IX had been in a frenzie.

Luxord gathers that none of his predecessors were businessmen before. He has been, previously, on a bad situation, he has been dealt a lousy pair of cards and yet, he has come victorious. True, he has never had to deal with such cards, and the stake has never been as high as his heart, but he won't let that ruin him. There's power in company, in a name, even in these clothes that make him part of a whole; all those help his chances to win jackpot, after all.

"Then?"

"It's just very dramatic, isn't it?" Luxord smiles, raising an eyebrow. It's not a question either. Xigbar shrugs and grins before dragging a chair and sitting down, booted feet on top of a table.

Luxord barely pauses a moment to raise an eyebrow before he takes off the jacket of his ruined suit. He still drapes it over a chair as if the dark blood clinging to the fabric hasn't rendered it completely useless. The white shirt underneath looks even worse, long, bloody gashes make it a miracle that it still remains on Luxord's body; he still takes his time (ah, pun not intended) on taking it off. His skin is flawless, muscles shifting as Luxord finishes with the buttons and puts the clothes henceforth known as rags unto the same chair, turning around. He pauses a moment, almost doubting, before he takes off his wedding ring, placing it in the pocket of his jacket.

He guesses Xigbar is curious, but he doesn't ask so Luxord doesn't find it in himself to venture anything that, at the moment, is useless.

"Nice tat," Luxord huffs a breath of laughter, whatever darkness he had when taking off that ring now carefully placed away at Xigbar's voice.

"Why, thank you. It was supposed to be a good luck charm," Luxord says with a careless shrug, looking over his shoulder and just taking notice of the faint outline of the knot of dark ink spinning itself down the small of his back, down the side of his hips . He feels Xigbar's eye follow the shape of the tattoo, the way it circles around itself and then disappears under the waistband of his trousers.

Neither of them mentions that it obviously didn't work, although Luxord can't find the energy to be upset about it. He finds it, if anything, amusing.

Luxord doesn't start dressing on the uniform until his pants and shoes are placed carefully and he's completely naked. He puts the pants first, leather clinging to his calves, to his thighs and ass like a second skin. From the corner of his eyes he sees the way Xigbar licks his lips and grins again, moving his feet of the table and leaning forward on the chair.

Luxord looks at him again, a raised eyebrow, and Xigbar grins in a way that, Luxord guesses, means he's not going to go away, bluffing. He smiles to himself, because he does know these rules and he can act through them.

This time, he consciously searches inside him enough for that knot of _something_, trying to make time slow down as he picks up the gloves and slips them on.

"What the..."

Luxord smiles to himself as he flexes the fingers of his right hand while the left one smooths it, makes sure that it reaches to below his elbow completely before picking up the other one, white skin immersing into the dark of the leather.

He startles as he feels a hand pressed against his back, fingers tracing the knot of his tattoo but when he turns to see, Xigbar is still sitting a few feet away from him, but his expression is more focused, his golden eye determined. He looks over his shoulder and finds nothing there.

Luxord smiles, because apparently, Xigbar also knows the rules of the game, so he closes his eye as he sits down to put the boots, feels Xigbar hands move against his sides, pressing against his stomach and running soft over the nape of his neck; there's still no body there, nothing but the cool pressence of darkness flirting with his back; Luxord focuses on keeping the time going slow as a summer day.

When he stands up to fit the boots properly, he feels a hand moving to cup his half hard cock, a big hand rubbing there and he gives a small moan. There's a small tug as he tries to pick up the robe but he still puts it, letting the cool feel of the leather caress his skin just as those gloved fingers are doing over his neck, tracing his collarbone, trying to open his trousers again but he doesn't move from where he is.

He hears Xigbar stand up and Luxord is about to call it his victory when the door to his room opens. Number VII, who also had been in the room while Vexen examined him, looks at both of them but doesn't even raise an eyebrow before he focuses over Xigbar.

"The Superior wants to see you, Xigbar."

Xigbar snorts. "Of course he does. He's always had the worst timing ever."

Luxord smiles as he finishes pulling the zipper of his robe up, feeling the stretch of leather as he moves. He sits down at an armchair that just pulled itself out of nothing and wishes he had some brandy.

"I could try to fix that, perhaps?"

Xigbar laughs out loud as he opens a path to walk out. VII doesn't say another thing and just walks away.

Luxord decides to set the score as a tie. At least for the moment.


End file.
